Monday, July 24, 2006

Housing report card?

The Bay Area Council of Governments "Housing Report Card" got a lot of press recently. However, it was remarkably devoid of any useful data. In the report card, they assigned a letter grade to the Bay Area, the counties, and cities based on each meeting its needed housing target. Never were they clear how the housing target was calculated. (I searched through the entire report and never saw a clear formula or definition.) There data was also suspect, with Sunnyvale even disputing the housing target. And even if the data and methodology were accurate, the validity of the goal is suspect.
A city may get an "A" for meeting 150% of its target for housing. But what good does that do if the jobs are all in another city 50 miles away? Housing should be available close to jobs. A new housing development in northeastern Santa Clara does a better job of providing for jobs in Northern Sunnyvale than does a location in southwestern Sunnyvale. Are the housing report cards just making traffic worse?
Better targets would include density and proximity to jobs.

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